In order to transport piece goods of choice, in particular items of luggage such as bags and cases, but also parcels, individually in a loading aid, for example in a container, in a positionally stable manner at high speed over a widely ramified conveying system having many changes of direction and, on the other hand, to bring about a rapid and controlled loading and separation of piece goods and container at predetermined positions within the conveying system, numerous solutions have been described in the prior art. Attempts have been made to design variously shaped containers, particularly in tray form, such that they satisfy the above-described requirements as fully as possible, even though the requirements with respect to the loading aids to be used are high. In particular, flexible and rollable piece goods behave critically.
In the known solutions, the loading is effected in such a way that the piece goods are conveyed from above into the stationary loading aid, for instance the container, in which case they fall in or slide in by force of gravity. A separation of piece goods and container is realized by tilting of the container transversely to the direction of conveyance, whereupon the piece goods slide laterally out of the loading aid under gravitational force.
In addition, active loading aids in the form of autonomous vehicles are known, wherein each vehicle is equipped with its own electrical traction drive, by which it can move in a locally fixedly installed rail system comparable to a railway. The vehicles are equipped with a conveyor track, which is fitted transversely to the direction of conveyance of the loading aid and allows the piece goods to be loaded and discharged at the loading and unloading stations at right angles to the direction of travel. The conveyor track is in this case driven by means of an electric motor fixedly installed on the vehicle, so that an easily controllable and gentle loading/separation of piece goods and container can be achieved. The so-called active loading aid of the described type is very complex and, because of the drive mechanics which are used, also very expensive.
At present, there is widespread use of conveying systems for luggage conveyance purposes, in which relatively simple plastics containers are transported on a conveyor track having supporting and guide elements for the container, which preferably consist of mutually parallel, endlessly rotating belts on which the containers rest. Drawbacks with these systems are the loading and, in particular, unloading devices, which are necessary to tip the piece goods out of the normally gently recessed trays. For this the use of gravitational force is indispensable, which, in turn, leads to the piece goods being subjected to extreme load when removed laterally from the conveying system via chutes, or when thrown into the containers during loading.
From piece goods conveying technology, in particular sorting technology, so-called crossover conveyors are known, which consist of vehicles movable on a conveying system, a plurality of which are combined to form a train or an endlessly rotating vehicle chain, the individual vehicles being provided with a carrying belt, which can be rotatingly driven transversely to the direction of transport of the vehicles. On this carrying belt realized as a crossbelt, the piece items are transported and, at the desired unloading station, laterally discharged by driving of the crossbelt. This type of conveying technology, as a result of the dependency of the individual vehicles upon the laid conveying section, is very limited in its use and cannot be used, for example, in large airport systems involving large distances. Moreover, the individual cars are usually provided with drives, which increase the overall complexity of such a system.